Fire to Water

New York City

Dru was in New York City, by herself, and it wasn't even that late. It wasn't even eight yet, which was barely five in California, and she would probably never get a chance this perfect again. She'd have to be out of her mind to not explore the city.

She wasn't stupid, either, so she made sure she was glamoured and armed. She'd heard the New York shadow market was magnificent, and that Central Park was an entrance to the seelie lands, and also Emma had told her that Claet had told her that there was a great restaurant run by werewolves somewhere.

She had one of Ty's fidget toys in her pocket in case she got lost, and as she stepped out of the institute and into the fading light, she felt free. She felt dangerous. She felt badass.

And New York was beautiful. The fading sunlight made a lattice of light over the streets as it reflected through the windows. Vampires hung onto the periphery of the crowd, and wild faeries leaned against doorways and curled in patches of sun. Mundanes laughed and chattered, oblivious to her and the more fantastical around them.

She stopped a moment in front of a bakery, and stared inside at the racks of sweets. The mundanes inside looked so happy, buying and selling oddly shaped pieces of bread. Did they have any idea what was happening around them? Did they even know she was there, fighting to save them? Did they care that she saw people dying when she closed her eyes?

Sun flashed off the window and into her eyes, and she blinked, eyes watering, and turned away from the window.

Golden-blond hair flashed through the haze, and for a second, she thought it was Emma, come to drag her back home to LA. But no, she realized as her eyes adjusted, the hair was too short. As they turned their head to the side, she recognized him, suddenly. It was Jace.

She debated calling out to him, but no— she probably wasn't supposed to be out here, alone, this late at night.

Besides, Jace was acting... strange. She wasn't sure how else to describe it. He still looked like Jace, and moved like Jace, but there was something wrong about all of it.

Dru had never seen someone who was possessed, or in faerie thrall, but she figured it would look like this. Just as wrong.

And she had to help him. If there was even a possibility she could help, she had to try. Besides, Kit might be— whatever it was— too, and if Kit died or something, Ty would do the thing again, and maybe she would lose him too.

Jace seemed to know where he was going, and so she followed him, making sure to keep enough of a distance that he wouldn't see her. He seemed to expect that someone would follow him, and kept turning down alleyways, moving faster and faster until he was running, and Dru was running after, her footfalls silent (she had taught herself how, when she was bored, and technically supposed to be babysitting), both of them hurtling down streets that got progressively fancier until they suddenly opened out into a forest— no, not a forest, a park, and Dru was definitely not supposed to go in the park at all, but she was going too fast—

Dru tripped and fell.

It felt like she was falling for far longer than she should have been able to, and also as if she were falling for no time at all.

She landed hard on marble, scratching her palms. It hurt, but Dru sat up and inspected them. They were bleeding, but not badly. She carefully smudged the blood off the floor. Mark hadn't known she could hear him warning Cristina about the courts, but she had listened, enraptured. Part of it was that it was Mark, finally back from Faerie, and the other part was the words themselves. She'd never heard stories like these, blood given for freedom and the never-silent roar of death and people who weren't human, who didn't even try, didn't try to pretend. She had always loved the macabre.

They were less fascinating now that they were an instruction manual and not a bedtime story.

Her palms burned, so she spat on them (do not ever lick your wounds, don't put anything ever in your mouth) and wiped them on her pants.

Julian was going to be so mad if she never got out.

Dru stood. She really wasn't going to get out if she stayed there moping.

The strange labyrinth seemed to go on forever. Dru counted her steps for a while, but the second time she counted a thousand, she stopped and just walked.

Time passed vaguely. Somewhere between an hour and a day later, she heard a footstep behind her. She whirled, slashed out, and threw the faerie against the wall.

He could almost pass for a human boy, except something about him was too... much. Like he was trying too hard to look right. His eyes were too wide and green, his hair too blonde, his bones bird-fine. She backed away, and he seemed content to stay where he was. Maybe he wasn't a faerie. Maybe he was stolen, like Mark.

She thought for a moment he was just a boy.

Then something moved in the shadows behind him.

"It's you," the boy with the shadow wings said. "You're the girl from the picture."